MANILA, Philippines – There has been nothing more confusing in recent TV history than Joe Goldberg, the creepy, murderous lover boy in the psychological thriller You.
The character is played by Penn Badgley at his Lonely Boy finest, and it is perhaps a testament to his performance that a lot of the show’s fans find themselves strangely attracted to the character, despite his stalker tendencies, and his propensity to murder. As a presence on screen, Joe is so charming, sometimes disarmingly so, that you almost don’t realize that he is a cold-blooded killer (also, he looks like Penn Badgley so…).
If anyone knows how to play a smart, charming, but ultimately creepy lover, it’s Penn – who sharpened his creep-acting skills in the late 2000s teen hit Gossip Girl, where he played the original lonely boy Dan Humphrey (and in fact, a lot of fans are saying that Joe Goldberg is just Dan Humphrey extreme).
So how does one portray a certified creep? For Penn, it’s actually easy – sometimes.
In an interview with Rappler on January 14, Penn gave a little snippet of how he brings his character to life – and the secret is in the face muscles.
“What’s so funny is that I think if you do something and you just don’t move your face muscles, it becomes very creepy. You just don’t do anything, you know what I mean?” he said.
“If you just don’t do anything but you’re let’s say, masturbating in public – this is something that happens – maybe I can’t say it in an interview but you’ll see it on Netflix – Joe is an extremely unsettling person, he does extremely unsavoury things, and if you actually maybe don’t add that much to it and just let the actions speak for themselves, it’s quite creepy.” he said.
Understandably, playing such an intense character could take a toll on anyone’s sanity – and Penn turned to music, prayer and meditation to recover.
“I do pray and meditate all the time, so that was like my lifeblood no doubt,” he said.
“Music, listening to pop music was really helpful, like actually Michael Jackson and Prince both were kind of like inspirations because their music is so obsessive,” he added.
“The love that’s in their pop music – like Michael Jackson is just (sings) you know, he’s like so intense with his emotion and a lot of the love that’s portrayed in those songs is obsessive and possessive, so I used some music that I grew up loving for a different purpose,” he said.
Penn will be in the second season on You, though no release date for the series has been announced yet. Season 1 is currently streaming on Netflix. – Rappler.com
